The app represents a shift in strategy, but it's also Apple's most serious attempt to address cord cutters since the release of the most recent Apple TV about a year ago. Apple believes that “the future of TV is apps,” but that there's a serious convenience problem with having content spread across so many apps.

Enter the TV app, which will integrate streaming services like HBO and Showtime into a single interface. The app will also include curated playlists from Apple's team. The idea is to make content discovery and navigation easy, and to unify it across apps.

From a business model perspective, the new TV app sounds the most like Amazon's current setup. Through its many add-on subscriptions, Amazon is trying to become your one-stop app for more than just Amazon Video: you can add HBO, Showtime, Seeso, and other streaming subscriptions to your Amazon account and access them through Amazon's interface. This new Apple app sounds very similar, in that it will become a one-stop shop – essentially a media center app – that integrates multiple streaming services into one interface.